An ancient study from the faraway medical era known as the 1900s found that French men had significantly lower cardiovascular mortality than American men—about 36 percent lower—even though they appeared to share many of the same risk factors: high cholesterol, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, and presumably the general stress of being a man who refuses to schedule a physical.

Researchers searched for an explanation. Americans drank mostly beer and liquor, while the French preferred wine. Thus began the extremely convenient theory that drinking one or two glasses of red wine every day might protect the heart. This was wonderful news for anyone who had already purchased a decorative wine rack.

For years, red wine occupied a magical nutritional category somewhere between medication and fruit. People heard that it contained antioxidants and immediately concluded that cabernet was basically a liquid multivitamin. A glass with dinner was sophisticated. Two glasses were cardiovascular maintenance. Finishing the bottle was simply an aggressive commitment to preventive medicine.

Unfortunately, newer theories have made the French Paradox considerably less fun.

Some researchers believe ischemic heart disease deaths in France may have been underreported. Much of the original data also came from the 1980s and may have reflected the health of people who lived through World War II and the food shortages that followed. Heart disease takes decades to develop, so the lower rates may have had less to do with red wine and more to do with an entire generation spending part of its life without access to unlimited cheese fries. In other words, we may have taken complicated postwar health data and turned it into permission to drink merlot on a Tuesday.

The less romantic truth is that long-term alcohol use is not particularly good for you. Alcohol can raise blood pressure, and the relationship becomes stronger as consumption increases. Cutting back can also reduce the burden of atrial fibrillation. Alcohol use is associated with an increased risk of several cancers, which is considerably less charming than anything printed on the back of a wine bottle.

The health conversation probably needs to move away from finding the perfect alcoholic beverage and toward helping people drink less of it. There is no enchanted vineyard where alcohol becomes medicine because it was poured into a stemmed glass.

The temporary pleasure eventually collects its interest. I say this, of course, the morning after drinking four full-sized beers. Apparently, my commitment to cardiovascular education includes field research.